Conan and the Shaman's Curse Read Online Free PDF Page B

sweat; the coarse ropes had cut into him while he tossed and turned, and blood now spotted them. Pain rose in throbbing waves from the cuts in his face; they itched, but he could not raise a hand to scratch at them. His calf was sore and swollen where the helmsman’s knife had pierced it. Conan lay atop the wooden crate, clenching his fists in helpless rage, staring at the ceiling of the cargo hold.
    It was night still—he could see the dark sky through the iron gate overhead. The ship’s gentle, rolling motion did little to calm him. He seethed, filling his muscles with the strength of rage, and threw his might into one terrific push against the thick ropes.
    But the sinews of ten stout men would have failed to break those bonds. Conan relaxed his straining thews and exhaled, groaning exhaustedly. Blood streamed anew from his jaw and rope-cuts, and he gritted his teeth, staring upward through the ceiling grate. Sleep offered him no comfort, for he had no wish to endure another of the strange dreams that had plagued him since the night of the battle.
    The night of the red mist.
    The dying shaman had summoned some demon to plague his dreams, perhaps to drive him to madness. A hundred haunting tales sprang into his mind, stories of slain men whose spirits rose to seek vengeance. A shiver lifted the damp, short hairs on the back of Conan’s neck. His deeply rooted dread of magic and the supernatural whispered dark suggestions to him as he lay in the ship’s makeshift brig, gazing at the ceiling.
    Then he drew in a sharp breath. Through the grate, the moon rose into view, freezing the blood in his veins. Unable to close his reddened eyes, he stared upward at it. It was but a tiny sliver away from waxing full. The carnage from his dream filled his mind’s eye, and he wondered what unspeakable fate a full moon might portend.
    Conan turned his head sideways, refusing to let these omens daunt him. What he needed was a plan to escape the hold. If he could but retrieve his blade, he would teach that Stygian dog Khertet a hard lesson about vengeance.
    He strained to hear the sounds around him, and the murmuring of voices filtered down. The cloth bandage and the clots of blood muffled some sounds, but he could still hear the creak of the ship’s timbers and the gentle slap of waves against her hull. The night watch above-decks presumably consisted of two men; he could hear two distinct voices, but their exact words were unclear. From outside the door to the cargo hold, he heard a strange, wheezing rasp, which he listened to for a while before realizing that the guard posted there was snoring.
    Conan thought about escape—the prospects were not encouraging.
    Khertet apparently had no intention of ever loosening the ropes. Conan would lie here, trapped for months, wasting away. The Cimmerian knew the limits of his endurance—with scant rations and a dipperful of water every day, his strength would ebb in less than a week. On many past occasions—during arduous desert treks and other hard times—he had lasted longer, but he could feel that his loss of blood had already drained precious vitality.
    The Stygian ex-admiral wanted to keep him alive and deliver him as a prize to the serpent-worshipping scum in Luxur; Crom knew what horrors awaited him in the snake pits of that accursed city. Conan would have to find a way out soon. Once weakened from starvation, he would truly be at Khertet’s mercy.
    He berated himself again for the ill decision that had involved him in the war between the Kaklanis and Zariris. Mercenary service could be lucrative, but choosing the wrong employer could prove fatal... as it had for Conan’s men. The Cimmerian should not have accepted the Zariri sheikh’s offer at face value. In the future—if he indeed had much of a future left—he vowed to be wiser in weighing risk against reward. Conan’s recent experiences as a soldier of fortune had yielded meagre profits. He had too often left the battlefield